Documentation sections

Scope of support

Dolby AC-3 audio codec is a popular codec generally used to convey multi-channels audio content with video content. It is possible to use AC-3 audio with H.264 or H.265 video in Radiant
Media Player. In order to support AC-3 audio the targeted device must exhibit support for it either through native HTML5 video or Media Source Extension. As of June 2018, AC-3 audio with H.264 video is supported in:

MS Edge for Windows 10

macOS 8+ Safari

iOS 9+ Safari

Where H.264/AC-3 is not supported we must provide an H.264/AAC audio fallback for decent device coverage. AC-3 audio-only streaming to HTML5 audio may work but has not been tested and is thus not currently supported by Radiant Media Player.

A newer version of AC-3, called EC-3, is also available on the market and the player supports it as well but not all devices supporting AC-3 can support EC-3. To detect support for EC-3 use ec-3 MIME type instead of ac-3.

While this documentation focuses on H.264/AC-3 support it may also possible to use H.265/AC-3 where both H.265 and AC-3 are supported. See the H.265
docs for more information.

H.264/AC-3 with HLS or DASH

The best way to deliver H.264/AC-3 content with HLS or DASH is to use a mix of H.264/AC-3 content and H.264/AAC content directly referenced in the master HLS playlist or DASH manifest. The codecs information must be explicitly described in the
playlist or manifest. An example of such stream can be found here:

https://www.radiantmediaplayer.com/media/hls/ac3/playlist.m3u8

With the above example, where AC-3 audio is supported the player will pick the H.264/AC-3 rendition and where AC-3 is not supported the player will the H.264/AAC rendition. This example is just a basic example of how to mix H.264/AC-3 and H.264/AAC
content in a HLS master playlist, in real-life use-cases each pairs of codecs are likely to have several renditions each to enable ABR streaming and this will work with the player as well.

H.264/AC-3 with MP4 progressive download

Radiant Media Player can also support H.264/AC-3 with MP4 progressive download. As with HLS or DASH you will also need to prepare an H.264/AAC rendition as a fallback where H.264/AC-3 is not supported. To accomplish this will need to use a method
from the getEnvironment API method. But let us run through an example to see how it works: